Being Mindful of Student Bandwidth Usage: 5 Quick Collaborate Tips

Internet bandwidth is a hot commodity right now as anyone who can is working and/or learning remotely. As a result, many web conferencing tools, including Blackboard Collaborate, are experiencing issues with lagging and poor connections.

Adding to this, many students do not have high-speed Internet connections and even some high-speed providers may be experiencing high levels of demand causing lag. It’s helpful for both you and your students to be mindful of these limitations and find ways to work around them. Here are few things you can do to reduce bandwidth usage in a Collaborate session:

Turn off cameras when not needed. Don’t need to see students or for them to see you? Turn off the camera.

Use the microphone only when needed. Doing this can also reduce feedback.

Be mindful of what you’re sharing in App Share. When doing an App Share, share just the specific tab you need in Chrome instead of the entire Desktop. If you’re not sharing a web based resource, choose share a single application instead.

Share PowerPoint slides by uploading them to Share Files in the Share Content pane. PowerPoint slides can be a big bandwidth hog, so make it easier on students by using this method.

Share Word or Google documents by saving them as PDFs and uploading them directly to the session. Same as above!